a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

Game 14 @POR: CJ Miles saves the day. What up doe!

Imagine that CJ has sprouted, like, flame wings or something. I tried to Photoshop it, but I’m no good. RIP several hours. Imagine it so those hours didn’t die in vain. Kthxbai.

7 first quarter TOs for the Jazz. The opponent has a double digit lead 2:30 into the second quarter, thanks in large part to the offensive rebounding differential, which is Jazz 1, Blazers 9. Sound nauseatingly, maddeningly, disgustingly, wall-punchingly familiar?

It was a 3-point game going into the half thanks to Ronnie P and Earl, but our boys let the lead get away from them again in the third. Yawn. How many times have we had to watch this stale, sorry, predictable old movie?

I don’t often complain about officiating, but the referees made a bad game nigh unwatchable. It looked like they had no clue what they were doing out there, and there was no consistency from ref to ref or play to play. And so it was simply the icing on the cake when “referee” Bill Kennedy T’ed up our assistant athletic trainer, who was sitting on the floor in his sweats on the sidelines. SMH(off).

We were down 9 going into the 4th. CJ hit a 3 with 10 minutes to go to cut the lead to 4…and then another, and then another. And then another. AND THEN ANOTHER. Doe went 5-5 from Three Point Land in the final period to almost singlehandedly get the Jazz the win. He was 7-10 from downtown on the night, which is something that I never thought I would see in the Jerry Sloan Era. But you know what was even more impressive than five threes in a quarter? CJ also collected two defensive rebounds.

The Jazz still cannot rebound to save their lives. The final offensive rebound tally was, in fact, downright offensive: Portland 24, Utah 6. It’s disgusting, is what it is. No one boxing the f*** out. No one going after boards. No one getting into position to go after boards. Until that changes, our wins can only be attributed to luck.

A couple of other things:** It’s completely unacceptable how differently the starters come out in the 1st half and in the 2nd. This isn’t an anomaly; it’s been a season-long phenomenon, and Deron shoulders a good part of the blame. I know he was dealing with a foot injury tonight, but like I said it’s a season-long issue and while playing through injury is commendable, it isn’t so much if you’re hurting the team. I don’t think I was alone in wanting Phil to leave Earl out there at the end of the game rather than bringing Deron back in, and I was only OK with Deron getting back into the game because Earl stayed in at the 1 and Deron was playing at the 2. It sucks to feel this way.** Seeing Wesley in a different uniform still sucks.** I love having Watson and Price on the floor at the same time. Same goes for Elson (who had some frickin’ smoooooth shots tonight) and Fes. The Jazz really need to do what they can to work Fes into the rotation and get him some minutes, because he can be a difference maker. If you disagree with me, that’s fine. However, El Capitan thinks so too:

Deron, post-game: “You look at every game we came back on, Earl and Ronnie have kind of spearheaded the comeback, and Fes in a couple of the games.”